Rita Wickham Wins ONS Publishing Award

Rita Wickham, PhD, RN, AOCN, of Rapid River, Michigan, received the Rose Mary Carroll-Johnson Distinguished Award for Consistent Contribution to Nursing Literature at the 35th Annual Congress of the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS). The award recognizes the impact the recipient has made on the oncology nursing profession using the written word to share research findings, describe content basic to the care of patients with cancer, and support the professional development of colleagues. Dr Wickham received her bachelor and master of science in nursing degrees from Northern Illinois University and her doctorate from the University of Illinois. An associate professor at Rush University College of Nursing in Chicago, she has written articles, book chapters, and monographs, primarily on supportive care and palliative care topics, and is a member of The Oncology Nurse editorial board as well as ONS and other nursing and oncology organizations.

How did you first get involved in research and publishing?

When I started to work in medical oncology at Rush in 1982, I worked with a group of oncology clinical nurse specialists. Almost everybody who worked there had a master’s degree, which was very unusual at that time, and these nurses had the title Practitioner Teacher. It was a great model that emulated the medical model at Rush and assumed that professionals with advanced degrees would not only be clinicians but also educators as well. My colleague Michelle Goodman, who is widely published, was my mentor and coach along with my other nurse colleagues. These colleagues invited me to write with them and gave me constructive feedback to improve my writing, which is what I would recommend to new writers. It’s very hard to start writing by oneself.

What did you write about?

I wrote about clinical things I encountered in my practice, mainly on symptom management and quality-of-life issues. The first major paper I wrote that was published in Oncology Nursing Forum in 1982 was on chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting—a problem I was not sure would be of interest t oncology nurses.

Now that I don’t have a clinical position, I have more time to write, which is a luxury for many nurses. I focus first on learning the normal underlying physiology and the pathogenesis and components of a problem I am writing about. This has always been the way I approached nursing; if I understood normal anatomy and physiology, I could better understand a patient’s medical and collaborative problem and formulate nursing management. When I write an article or chapter, I try to take complex concepts and distill and translate them down to essential nursing components.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

I have taken a couple of writing courses, and I would recommend that to others interested in writing. They can be invaluable in terms of helping you understand that you shouldn’t use 1000 words if 100 words will do, that simple words are generally more effective than more complex words, such as “use” instead of “utilize,” and to distill and write content so that it makes sense to clinicians.

I sometimes tell people that I write what I call “the idiot’s version,” and I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense at all. What I mean is that I try to make it clear enough so that all readers can go away with greater understanding. I try to do the same thing when I do lectures and oral presentations. If there’s a layperson in the audience and they tell me they understood what I said, I feel good about that because that is the point—to make the message clear so it gets across.

When a nurse or a couple of nurses who work in the same institution, particularly if they’ve worked there for a long time, are writing an article, it’s very useful to get the perspective of somebody who works in a different clinical area or a different institution. This broadens your perspective on the topic.

Also, I always encourage someone who has given a good presentation to consider writing it up. The hardest thing is to get started. I tell people when you write, just write something. It doesn’t matter if it’s grammatically correct, just write. You can come back to it later on and revise it. I’m happy to serve as coach for anyone who has an idea and wants some help getting started in writing about it.